


Offerings (the Say It With Flowers remix)

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Awkward Romance, F/F, Femslash, Immortality, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:47:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: It wouldn’t, couldn’t last, any more than a flower could. Had someone told her this, they would not have found her surprised, and could not have disheartened her. Ada was a mortal, and she was not. She knew this, had always known it. No thing lasted, and she would delight in its existence and mourn its passing. And now – what other time was there? – it was nectar-sweet.
Relationships: Florist (F)/Flower goddess
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Remix Revival 2020





	Offerings (the Say It With Flowers remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gammarad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Flowers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18641359) by [Gammarad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/pseuds/Gammarad). 



People had always picked flowers. She had never minded. She met them in the delight they took in the beauty or the boldness or the delicacy of the flower, and blessed them with new buds and more blooms where they had plucked the first one.

Later, when they began to sell them, she had engaged in some brief skirmishes with the deity of commerce. His commodities, he said. Her flowers, she said. After a while, they’d agreed to disagree, and split the sellers between them.

She took the ones who loved the flowers. He took the ones who loved the money. She thought that she had the better part of the deal. Very often the one who made the most money turned out to have loved flowers more than profit.

She had lost the man who sold flowers for offerings. That had hurt. She had seen into his heart, had known that even though he stood at the foot of the steps of her temple he did not serve her; but it had stung all the same when, at the end, she had been forced to yield him to her rival.

The imperial flower-arranger had been a triumph, though, that same year. He’d begun as a palace dogsbody, placed there by an ambitious family, but had retreated from the intrigue and jockeying for position into a more skilled and subtle art. And if he’d arranged for a bouquet of stunningly beautiful, stunningly poisonous blooms to be placed in the bedroom of a would-be assassin, well, if the empress knew she never mentioned it. The goddess of politics had fought hard for him, but in the end she’d had to admit that he belonged to the flowers.

That was a special case, though. Usually it was the god of commerce. He snapped up the merchants, and more of the naturalists than she’d expected. He’d trounced her in the tulip fever, sweeping up hundreds of merchants, though she’d found herself with a couple of artists who learned to love flowers as they painted them.

The thousands upon thousands who loved flowers and never thought to sell them, they were hers. She had a soft spot for the little girl who sold violets in Cheapside, though she knew that the poor mite had no interest in flowers beyond the farthing she might get for them.

She had no interest in the ones who sold the Valentine’s Day roses. He was welcome to them.

And now there was Ada. She didn’t remember the names the humans called themselves, usually; she thought of them as _the-one-who-chooses-the-leaves-first_ or _the-one-who-likes-red-best_. The one the humans called Ada was _the-one-who-snips-the-stems-carefully_. But she couldn’t say that to her; it wouldn’t have revealed her true identity, but it would surely arouse suspicion. After all, she’d never been in the shop when Ada had been snipping stems. She wouldn’t have known that, if she’d been the customer that Ada thought she was.

 _Ada_. It was a short name, sweet, simple. There were thousands of other people called Ada, but this one didn’t seem to mind that. This Ada had a shy, kind smile, and hair that was the delicate silver of honesty pennies. Sometimes she sold flowers, and sometimes she didn’t; once in a while she gave them away.

She was everything that would meet with the approval of a flower goddess. But it was more than that. She found delight in Ada, in her shop, in her quiet son who handled the flowers with such gentleness, in the other young man who came in every day to buy a flower and take it home to his mother.

She knew why he bought those flowers: it was not for the blooms themselves, nor even for his mother. It was so that he could have a reason to come to the shop and see Ada’s quiet son. Soon he would learn to love flowers for the sake of the lad who loved them. In the meantime, he was not her concern.

The goddess of love was also known to frequent florists’ shops, greedy for weddings and seductions, apologies and introductions. She quite often followed the other young man to the shop.

When she saw her sister there, she gave her a wink and a smile of encouragement. It wasn’t as if there was a rule against it. One knew the risks. And, for one to whom the flowers were dedicated, the flowers that bloomed and died and were briefly beautiful, it was not really any different.

In any case, she could not have helped it. She was wherever flowers were, and Ada was always around flowers. And, being where Ada was, how could she have helped loving Ada?

And how could she tell her?

‘Give her something,’ the goddess of love advised her. ‘Your _one-who-snips-the-stems-carefully_. Give her something to show her how you feel.’

‘What should I give her?’ She thought quickly about how their fellow deities carried on. ‘A palace?’

‘How would you explain a palace?’

‘Do you think I’d have to explain it?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

She nodded. Humans liked to have reasons for doing things. She had come to learn this. She had learned, too, that those reasons frequently failed to explain why the humans had done the things.

‘So I should give her something smaller? A garden?’

‘Smaller than that. A flower.’

‘But I’ve already given her all the flowers there are.’

‘She doesn’t know that. Or,’ said the goddess of love, whose attention seemed to have been attracted by the arrival of Ada’s son on his bicycle, ‘you could just tell her.’

‘I’ll give her a flower.’

But what sort of a flower? Not something that Ada would have had in her shop anyway. And not something too rare: that would have taken her straight back to explanations. In the end she found a pressed hydrangea bloom, half a century old but still a vivid blue, stuck to a square of cardboard.

She gave it to Ada the next time she visited the shop. ‘For you,’ she said, and didn’t know what else to say.

Ada’s smile was bewildered, but radiant. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

The next day, she brought her a bright yellow watering can. Then a packet of marigold seeds. Then a print of a passion flower. And so it went on. She was happy – Ada received her gifts graciously, and never turned her out of the shop – but she thought that perhaps other things were meant to happen. She didn’t like to return to the goddess of love for advice – in any case, the goddess of love had her hands full with Ada’s son and the boy who kept buying flowers – so she just kept on bringing the gifts.

One day she brought a device for making scrap paper into flowerpots. The next, she had in her pocket a tiny locket with a forget-me-not caught under a dome of glass, but before she could get it out, Ada had walked out from behind the counter.

She had her coat on. ‘I was thinking I’d close the shop early tonight,’ she said. ‘Would you like to come for a walk with me?’

‘I would like that very much,’ she said.

They hadn’t gone very far at all before Ada stopped and picked a wallflower that was growing in a crack. ‘You kept bringing me presents,’ she said, when she handed it to her.

‘I wanted to.’

Ada laughed and took her hand.

They walked out along the boardwalk, and the salty breeze caressed their faces. No flowers grew there – at least, not until Ada stopped, and turned to face her, and drew her close, and kissed her: and suddenly there was a cloud of sea-pinks blossoming between the old, grey, weathered boards.

It wouldn’t, couldn’t last, any more than a flower could. Had someone told her this, they would not have found her surprised, and could not have disheartened her. Ada was a mortal, and she was not. She knew this, had always known it. No thing lasted, and she would delight in its existence and mourn its passing. And now – what other time was there? – it was nectar-sweet.


End file.
